This is the first time that the Packers have picked up the fifth-year option on a contract.

Every player picked in the NFL Draft receives a four-year contract. Each contract of a first-round pick also includes a fifth-year team option. The deadline for exercising that option for first-round picks in the 2014 NFL Draft is Wednesday.

Clinton-Dix joined the Packers as the 21st player picked in the 2014 NFL Draft.

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For a player picked in Clinton-Dix's spot in the draft, the value of his fifth-year option is the average salary of the third through 25th highest-paid players at his position. Clinton-Dix's option is projected to be worth $5,957,000 for the 2018 season. Clinton-Dix is scheduled to make $1.56 million for the 2017 season.

The fifth-year option guarantees a player's salary against injury. So if Clinton-Dix were to get hurt and couldn't play in 2018, he'd still get paid the full value of the option year. If Clinton-Dix is on the Packers' roster at the start of the NFL's 2018 business year in March, the fifth-year option salary will become fully guaranteed.

Using its fifth-year option doesn't prevent Green Bay from negotiating a longer-term contract with Clinton-Dix.

A consensus All-American for Alabama in 2013, Clinton-Dix earned his first Pro Bowl invitation and was second-team All-Pro in his third season with the Packers in 2016. He tied for the NFL league among safeties with five interceptions and was one of four players in the NFL who was on the field for every one of his team's defensive snaps last season.

This is the fourth year the fifth-year option has existed on first-rounders' contracts. Green Bay had declined the options on the contracts of Derek Sherrod, Nick Perry and Datone Jones over the previous three years.